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The U.S. Department of Agriculture 1994-1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals was used to estimate the intake of naturally occurring inulin and oligofructose by the U.S. population. Two nonconsecutive 24-h dietary recalls from >15,000 Americans of all ages were conducted, and a special database of inulin and oligofructose was developed specifically for the analyses. American diets provided on average 2.6 g of inulin and 2.5 g of oligofructose. Intakes varied by gender and age, ranging from 1.3 g for young children to 3.5 g for teenage boys and adult males. When standardized for amount of food consumed, the intakes showed little difference across gender and age. Significant differences in intake of these components were seen between categories within region of the country, season, income, and race and origin; however, the actual differences were relatively small. Major food sources of naturally occurring inulin and oligofructose in American diets were wheat, which provided about 70% of these components, and onions, which provided about 25% of these components. The estimation of the presence of inulin and oligofructose in the diets of Americans has not been published to date.

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OBJECTIVES. This study provides revised baseline data for the Healthy People 2000 objective related to fruit and vegetable intakes, accounting for fruits and vegetable intakes, accounting for fruits and vegetables from all sources and measuring servings in a manner consistent with current dietary guidance. METHODS. Dietary data from 8181 adults in the US Department of Agriculture's 1989-1991 Continuing Surveys of Food Intakes by Individuals were examined. All foods were disaggregated into their component ingredients; all fruit and vegetable ingredients were assigned specific weights to correspond to a serving as defined by current dietary guidance materials; and the number of servings was tallied. RESULTS. While mean intakes of fruits and vegetables--4.3 servings per day--were not far from the Year 2000 objective, only 32% of American adults' intakes met the objective. When more stringent standards were set either to compensate for higher calorie levels or to achieve the balance between fruits and vegetables suggested in current guidance, only 24% and 12%, respectively, met the recommendations. CONCLUSIONS. These results suggest a need to develop strategies for overcoming barriers to eating fruits and vegetables.

We describe a method for comparing food intakes reported in surveys with recommendations given in the US Department of Agriculture's food guide pyramid. Such comparison was previously difficult because many foods are eaten as mixtures that cannot be categorized into pyramid food groups and because food intake data and food recommendations are expressed in different units of measurement. We developed a recipe file showing ingredients at multiple levels of breakdown and used it to disaggregate food mixtures into their ingredients so that they could be placed into pyramid food groups. Food-specific weight consistent with the pyramid definitions for serving sizes were derived from the food code book of the 1989-1991 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals and used to develop a serving-weight file. Data collected from 8181 adults aged > or = 20 y in the survey were used to estimate the mean number of servings from pyramid food groups and percentages of the population meeting pyramid recommendations. The mean numbers of servings were close to the minimum recommendations for the grain, vegetable, and meat groups and well below the minimum recommendations for the fruit and dairy groups. large proportions of adults (43-72%) failed to meet the dietary recommendations. Our method has several nutrition monitoring and nutrition education applications.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 provide recommendations on how much to eat from the USDA Food Patterns Groups such as Grains, Dairy, Fruits, Vegetables, and Protein Foods. The research objective was to develop the USDA Food Patterns Equivalents Database 2007–08 for the foods in What We Eat In America, the dietary component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007–08, by retooling the methodology that was used to create the MyPyramid Equivalents Database 2003–04. The retooling steps included consolidating the weights of one cup of fruits and vegetables such that similar types of fruits and vegetables will have the same weights; using 16 grams of flour as the basis for defining one ounce equivalent of grains for grain products made of flour and using 28.35 grams as one ounce equivalent of grains for breakfast cereals and grains; estimating added sugars equivalents from the total sugar values of the foods that are defined as added sugars; and defining the amount of alcoholic beverages that contain 14 grams of ethanol as one drink. Selected, day 1 mean intake estimates for individuals 2 years of age and over were: fruits, one cup equivalent of which one‐third came from fruit juice; vegetables, 1.4 cup equivalents of which about one‐fourth was from potatoes and one‐fifth from tomatoes; and dairy, 1.7 cup equivalents. The new methodology simplified the process, without affecting the quality of the data.

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